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Legal News Archive For
June, 2009

Niceville, FL—A sudden confrontation with a man accused of beating his wife turned deadly for two Florida law enforcement officers on Sunday morning.
Okaloosa County Sheriff's Deputies Burt Lopez and Warren “Skip” York had gone to a shooting range to arrest a man, Joshua Cartwright, on dom...

Santa Ana, CA—The former head of the nation's fifth-largest sheriff's department has been sentenced following a courtroom drama that has played out since October 2007.
Michael Carona, who was indicted on public corruption charges stemming from alleged money-laundering, conspiracy, mail fraud a...

On Sunday, Taiwan ordered all of its airports to secure immigration checks from those who entered from North America. This is due to the possible influx of the swine flu, a new flu that has killed 80 people and affected various more thus far.
“Visitors from Mexico and the United States includi...

Philadelphia, PA--In the East Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, a SEPTA bus quickly stopped when it found an unusual sight early Sunday morning.
A toddler, without shoes or socks, and wearing only a pair of inside-out pajama pants, was waddling into a busy intersection of Chew Avenue and ...

Federal law mandates that schools take the necessary measures to ensure that all children attending school in America, no matter what their primary language, are proficient enough in English to receive a competitive education.
The law, enacted in 1974, includes as provision to sue in order to en...

New York—The U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan announced late last week that it would be dropping all charges against David Stockman, the former Reagan-administration official who had been accused of fraud.
Stockman, who had been Reagan's budget director from 1981 to 1985, later was named ch...

WASHINGTON—The “morning-after pill,” which was once offered over-the-counter only to those women who were 18 and older, is now available to 17-year-olds.
A federal court ordered on March 23 that the Plan B emergency contraception pill be made available to those 17 and older.
Previously,...

NEW YORK—At his sentencing Wednesday, during which he learned he would spend more than 31 years in prison, a former drug lord apologized to the people of America for harming them with cocaine.
Diego Murillo was one of Columbia's most notorious drug lords, who allegedly committed hundreds of mu...

DUESSELDORF, Germany—A plot to attack German and United States interests in central Germany has four men on trial Wednesday. Authorities had discovered and stopped the plan in 2007, before any of the attacks could be carried out.
German prosecutors asserted that the suspects had planned car bo...

HOUSTON, Texas—A 12-year-old accused of killing a 10-month-old toddler will remain in custody, announced a judge in a juvenile court hearing on Wednesday.
Supporters were very quick to speak out on the boy's behalf at the two-hour hearing.
“Even though we can’t bring a child back, we ca...

Los Angeles, CA—An entrepreneur who created a grocery store chain catering to Los Angeles's poorest community has been convicted of bribery, racketeering, soliciting murder and other crimes. A federal court jury announced the verdict on Monday.
George Torres, an entrepreneur who built the mult...

Richmond, VA—Some of the families of sailors killed in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole have been granted compensation in their relatives' deaths, said a lawyer on Tuesday.
The families – 33 spouses, parents and children – have been battling in court for six years. They claimed that the Su...

NEW YORK—During an argumentative marital separation, Lisa Stebic disappeared, leaving her two children behind. The disappearance took place two years ago this month, but authorities say they are still nowhere near closing the case.
Family, friends, and court documents all confirmed that the co...

Washington, DC—In a recent ruling, the Supreme Court stated that police can no longer search the car of a detained suspect if the person poses no immediate danger to officers.
One of the most common instances in which police officers immediately search a person's car is if they suspect the pre...

WASHINGTON—For the very first time, an animal rights activist has been added to the FBI's “Most Wanted Terrorists” list.
The Federal Bureau Investigation hopes that national recognition will help aid them in the capture of Daniel Andreas San Diego. The 31-year-old animal activist has been ...

Miami, FL—Four men who planned and executed a murder—but who are alleged to have killed the wrong man—are now detained in Broward County, Florida and will face charges of first degree premeditated murder and attempted murder.
Police say that an argument over an ex-girlfriend precipitated t...

KINGSTON, Jamaica—A gunman who was hijacking a chartered jet near Montego Bay, Jamaica has been arrested after an eight-hour standoff with police.
Camille Tracey, a police spokeswoman, said the authorities believed this man was “mentally challenged.” Authorities reported that the 20-year-o...

A sex offender with boyishly young looks believed he could pose as a 12-year-old boy. He was proven right for a while when he was able to enroll in several Arizona junior high school schools, but was eventually sentenced Tuesday to 70.5 years in prison.
The criminal, Neil Havens Rodreick II plea...

MOGADISHU--Twenty-five masked gunmen, who captured three aid workers over the weekend, have demanded $1 in ransom money.
The drama is unfolding in Somalia, which is suffering with some of the world's harshest living conditions. Although the country has 3 million people dependent on food aid, it ...

New York—Previously, only convicted criminals have been tracked using DNA by the federal government. The FBI, however, is beginning to expand the databases of DNA information to include people who have been detained or arrested, but not convicted. Those who are awaiting trial, as well as detained...

The United States Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case of Savana Redding, who was strip-searched by authorities at Safford Middle School when she was just 13 years old.
In 2003, Redding was accused by a fellow student of providing over-the-counter ibuprofen pills; since the school maint...

San Francisco—Lawyers say that a plea agreement has been reached in the case of a slain Bay-area journalist.
The alleged killer will plead guilty to the voluntary manslaughter of Oakland Post editor and investigative journalist Chauncey Bailey, and will testify against two others in several ca...

Warwick, RI—Police in Providence, Rhode Island are investigating an attempted robbery at a suburban hotel which, they believe, may be tied to a recent Boston murder in which a woman was shot at an upscale hotel.
Both cases involve women who had advertised massage services on Craigslist, the gr...

Washington—The State Department is heavily concerned about the Iranian private trial which is being held, in which an American journalist is accused of espionage. The State Department called these accusations “baseless” and urged that her release could only help U.S.-Iranian relations.
Ira...

Dallas, TX—The Texas Senate has just passed a bill that will change the exposure standards for asbestos litigation, and which will potentially put thousands of businesses at risk for litigation.
Senate Bill 1123, set forth by Senator Robert Duncan, passed on Thursday by a 20-11 vote. It will r...

Washington—A Bush-era memo was released on Thursday reporting that no laws against torture were broken. The Bush administration administered tactics such as sleep deprivation, slapping, and waterboarding, but with no intent to cause extreme pain.
“To violate the statute, an individual must h...

Alan Bersin, a former Justice Department official and former U.S. attorney, was chosen to fill the new U.S. post of “border czar” on Wednesday. Bersin, who was once California's Education Secretary and also led a crackdown on illegal border crossings in the 1990s, will now oversee the effort to...

MADRID, Spain—Prosecutors from Spain do not want an investigation against six Bush administration officials to be opened, reports the country's attorney-general. The men would have been tried for sanctioning torture against terror suspects imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay.
Candido Conde-Pumpido sa...

Los Angeles, CA—Even though he had attempted to flee to Mexico, a man who allegedly killed his grandmother was captured earlier this week.
The 25-year-old, Joseph Elias George Ettima, was brought back to Los Angeles and will face charges in the killing. He is also accused of setting the woman'...

According to a study recently conducted by The Constitution Project, a bipartisan group, there are major problems with how the Sixth Amendment—which guarantees legal counsel to indigents and the poor—is being carried out in many U.S. States.
The study, which lasted for over five years and ex...

Arizona--A 48-year-old female math teacher was romantically involved with a Chandler high school student when her 20-year-old boyfriend walked in on them in her bedroom, police reported Tuesday. This love triangle resulted in the boyfriend stabbing the high school student to death after he found hi...

A new detailed, up-to-date, study has discovered the illegal immigrant population is largely comprised of young families with children, and that this demographic is the fatest-growing within that population.
The Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan organization, released the study...

Miami, FL—A woman, her boyfriend and his nephew were charged this week with federal kidnapping counts. Yet FBI officials say that the victims of the kidnapping were the woman herself and her son—the scheme was concocted to bilk her ex-husband out of money.
Alejandra Arriaza and her boyfriend...

Billings, MT—A paleontologist who gained fame by finding remarkably well-preserved dinosaur remains has been charged in a U.S. District Court with stealing from federal land.
The items he stole? Dinosaur fossils.
Nate Murphy first entered the paleontological spotlight in 2000, when he unear...

Since taking office in January, U.S. President Barack Obama has instituted a large shift in the United States policy towards Cuba, which has remained almost unchanged for nearly half a century. Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, however, says the policy shift fails to mention the “harshest of meas...

Milwaukee, WI—Police in Milwaukee, and around the country, are using some high-tech tricks in their fight against crime.
Twitter, the social networking site, is already popular as a tool which allows celebrities and everyday people to update friends on their whereabouts or activities. Yet poli...

Atlanta, GA—For the second time, a dispute over a wealthy man's will goes before the Georgia Supreme Court.
The battle over Harvey Strother's estate rages between his wife and three children on one side, and his mistress, Anne Melican, on the other. Attorneys for the Strother family claim that...

The Iranian judiciary spokesman said a verdict is expected within a couple of weeks for the American journalist who was tried for espionage in Iran. The privately held trial was for Roxana Saberi, a 31-year-old Iranian-American citizen who was arrested in late January.
Saberi was initially accus...

Chicago—A deputy U.S. marshal is facing charges of having leaked information to the Mafia.
John T. Ambrose, 50, is alleged to have stolen information from a file on Nicholas Calabrese, a former hit man with the mob, while guarding Calabrese during the 2007 “Family Secrets” trial. High-rank...

Jacksonville, FL—The Florida Attorney General's Office filed a lawsuit last week, alleging that the maker of some popular toys violated the state's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
Showbiz Promotions and its owner, Jaime Salcedo, were named in the suit for having duped consumers into ...

MADISON, Wisconsin—Douglas Plude is accused by prosecutors to have murdered his 28-year-old wife once he learned that she was planning on leaving him. They say that he poisoned her with a migraine headache drug and, while she was vomiting, pushed her head into a toilet, eventually leading to her ...

A Sydney grandmother, Margaret Dawson, has won a landmark compensation case against her spouse's employer, even though she is not alive.
Mrs. Dawson died last year at the age of 64, but was awarded $550,000 by the NSW Dust Diseases Tribunal a little more than a week ago. She had taken legal acti...

BOSTON, Massachusetts—$20 million in cuts from its unions forced The Boston Globe's management to make a decision threatening to begin the process of shutting down the newspaper.
The New York Times Company, the Globe's owner, gave the Globe's biggest union a copy of a notice that was ready to ...

There have been various discrimination lawsuits emerging in the press lately, but not often one classified as a discrimination reversal. In New Haven, 19 white firefighters say that the only thing that treats them equally is the fire.
“The fire isn't going to discriminate against a person whet...

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